Seychelles gears up for climate change negotiations |14 August 2023

Participants during group work

The latest reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) call for urgent action and enhanced and scaled up commitments particularly from developed countries to curb down the current trend of global warming and the effects of which are increasingly being felt across the planet.  While developing countries need to build resilience and strengthen adaptation capacity to protect the lives and livelihood of their citizens.

At the international level, the climate negotiation process driven by the UNFCCC is on-going. It aims at generating consensus on a collective approach to combat climate change by adopting a low carbon emission pathway and achieving global net zero emissions by 2045, while at the same time assisting developing countries to build resilience to face the accentuating impacts of climate change.

It is in this context that all relevant local stakeholders need to be made aware of the stakes and importance of the international climate change negotiation process and its implication for various sectors.

Against this background, the Seychelles government through the Ministry of Agriculture Climate Change and Environment, with support from the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub and the Indian Ocean Commission, undertook a capacity building training workshop in climate change negotiations at the Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay Resort & Casino. The training was held from August 1 to 3, 2023 and 28 climate change negotiators were trained, coming from various stakeholders including line ministries, government agencies, academic institutions, the Development Bank, youth organisations and NGOs. This was to ensure a fair and integrated approach towards decision making and that relevant stakeholders, the youth and the civil society can contribute to formulating national positions and support the prospect for more effective and active participation.

The opening of the training workshop on Tuesday August 1, 2023 was graced by the principal secretary for Climate Change and Energy, Tony Imaduwa, Gina Bonne from the Indian Ocean Commission and Dr Oldman Koboto, the manager of the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub.

In his opening statement Mr Imaduwa said “the Seychelles government remains committed to making its fair share of contribution towards keeping the 1.5 degrees Celsius global goal alive and ensuring that it builds the capacity of its human resource especially the youth to respond effectively towards climate change”.

He thanked the Indian Ocean Commission and the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub for the support provided in training climate change negotiators for Seychelles. This initiative would ensure that the Seychelles delegation is strengthened and equipped with the necessary skills as we approach COP28 in Dubai.

Ms Bonne spoke on behalf of the Indian Ocean Commission and she pointed out that “Seychelles has continued to be a leader in moving forward the climate change agenda and maintained a good name at the international level. However, there was need to build the capacity of young negotiators because most of the climate change negotiators are getting older and will require to hand over the mantle to the younger generation”.

Dr Oldman Koboto, on behalf of the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, emphasised that “the training was very critical as it would equip Seychelles with the necessary tools of negotiation, designing policies, legal instruments and strategic national positions that take into consideration the national circumstances but at the same time influence international decisions”.

The key outcomes of this training workshop was the built capacity of strategic stakeholders in understanding the background of climate change negotiations,  timeline of the negotiation process and key milestones, the technical nomenclature of the UNFCCC process, the roles and functions of subsidiary bodies and other thematic working groups, the progress of the negotiation process on themes such as adaptation, mitigation, finance, loss and damage, transparency, technology and gender, among others; and the roles and functions of negotiation blocks. While at the same time build capacity in how to develop a position paper informed by national priorities through an interactive and practical process.

The participants were taken through the step-by-step climate change negotiation process and they managed to develop draft text to be used during negotiations on the operationalisation of the Loss and Damage Fund. They also were taken through the process of developing a country position.

After all this the participants were given certificates of completion and six of them were selected to attend the advanced course that will be held in Mauritius in the first week of September.

Contributed